So the other night I was watching a movie on Netflix a friend of mine recommended. The movie is called Knuckle. I remember seeing a clip of it on youtube. When I watched the clip I didn’t know the back story nor did I realize it was actually a documentary.

It sort of reminds me of the Hatfields and Mccoys. Except not as much blood was spilled. With that said, being a martial artist I focused on the techniques they were using in their bare knuckle fighting contest.

English: John Lawrence Sullivan (October 15, 1858 – February 2, 1918), also known as the Boston Strong Boy, in his prime. He was recognized as the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing from February 7, 1882 to 1892, and is generally recognized as the last heavyweight champion of bare-knuckle boxing under the London Prize Ring rules Nederlands: John L. Sullivan 日本語: ジョン・L・サリバン (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One thing that struck me is that some of the fights lasted 2 hours long. That’s 2 long hours beating the crap out of each other. Something about that just doesn’t sound right does it. What I noticed is that many of their punches lacked any power.

I say that because a fight really shouldn’t last longer than a minute or 3. Due to their fair fight rules, the reality of the conflict doesn’t ever get resolved. Which brings me to the point that this documentary covers 12 years of fighting and feuding.

Later in the documentary we see 2 old dudes still fighting over pissing rights. (Even The Guy Recording The Video Was Disgusted at the display). I think the worse part of the whole story is that its brothers and cousins fighting each other.

With all that said, what we see are people literally slugging it out. It made me wonder why none of the fighters took the time to learn a martial art. From what I watched it looked like they all trained in boxing. ( I love boxing and I think it is a part of an effective self defense strategy) With that said though, if your going to box like boxers in a ring, you should be using at least gloves and mouth pieces.

Boxing as we know it is pure entertainment. Those guys and gals take a beaten on the brain. Martial Arts for self defense is designed to end fights in seconds or minutes not hours.

You can’t call what they were doing “fighting”, holding a competition of strength and endurance maybe. Yes it was real blood and real bare knuckle boxing. Mostly though they were just exchanging blows with each other. Real fights involves biting, scratching, kicking etc.

Not that I think violence actually solves anything and clearly after a 12 year feud it’s clear that violence doesn’t actually solve anything. Why do you suppose people feel the need to beat the crap out of each other?

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea….

I do think it’s important for you to stress test your skills. I also think if you are training to fight in the ring/cage etc.. You should absolutely train for that type of event. I really only got involved in martial arts to protect myself and my family if the occasion should ever arise.

That’s why I got involved with bouncing many years ago. I wanted to test my skill under realistic fighting conditions. Since I am not aggressive by nature, I needed to put myself in situations where I was a peace keeper so to speak.

After watching this documentary words my uncle said to me echoed in my head. “Doesn’t matter how much martial arts you know or how tuff you are a bullet can end you in seconds”.

Ultimately fighting never solves anything. If anything it creates more bad blood and someone always feels like they need to get revenge or redeem themselves. In one clip of the movie there was this poor guy who kept getting up wanting more of a beating.

This guy had no chance of winning and was just getting creamed, yet he kept getting up. (If it was a real fight it would have been over in seconds.) Rather the end the fight they let the guy keep getting up to take a beaten.

Makes no sense to me. I got rid of my ego and pride many years ago. While watching the video, my wife and good friend commented to each other. Do boys ever grow up? I was wondering the same thing myself……. And I am A Boy!

I guess my question is – > What causes people to get so angry that they feel the only way to solve their problems is by beating the shit out of someone else?